


who can say if i've been changed for the better?

by FairyChess



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Sedoretu, Canon Compliant up to 2x01, Drabble, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Multi, Murder the Hypotenuse, Planet O Fusion, Polyamory, Present Tense, Sedoretu, The Drabble that Would Not Die, basically everyone is poly because reasons, i mean that wasn't a decision i made but it happened, its not like super angst its just Barry being a self-sacrificing idiot, thats is thats the fic, this is literally 2000 words of my ot4 talking about how much they love eachother
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-15 01:49:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8037478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairyChess/pseuds/FairyChess
Summary: The Allen-West family has always been full of love.





	who can say if i've been changed for the better?

The Allen-West family has always been full of love.

It’s not strange that they live in separate houses.

Plenty of marriages don’t. They live close, and Barry and Iris see each other almost every day. They don’t lose anything by living separately.

But then Francine leaves, and Joe and Iris are alone in the house. Iris ends up spending most of her time with the Allen half of her parents anyway.

It is purely coincidence that Iris isn’t there the night Nora dies. Both children were supposed to come over to Joe’s for pizza, and spend some time with their ever-busy Morning father, but Barry got a fever and couldn’t come.

The next thing Joe knows, his Morning wife is dead, by his husband’s hands, and Barry – poor traumatized Barry – is screaming and crying about a man in yellow, inside a tornado of lightning.

Iris believes him. She wants to believe him, Joe thinks, wants to believe that her Evening father isn’t capable of this kind of bloodshed and Joe – Joe wants to believe him too.

But Henry’s fingerprints are all over the blade; Nora’s blood is all over his hands.

Joe spends sleepless nights, wondering if maybe they had all been together, if he could have stopped it somehow. If he could have changed something, saved Nora, stopped Henry – kept Francine from leaving. And now? Now he’s just a lonely man with two children to raise. Two children who believe the best of a murderer.

He doesn’t take off his wedding ring.

And when Barry – precious, trusting Barry – goes to see his evening father in prison and Joe has to come get him, he sees that neither has Henry.

* * *

 

Barry has been in love with Iris for as long as he has known what love is

He knows it the same way he knows the sky is blue, or that things fall under the influence of gravity. He knows it the way he knows the pattern of moles across the backs of his hands, or the way he knows his Evening father is not a murderer.

Loving Iris is a universal constant, a basic component of his personality.

The thought of telling her is terrifying.

Siblings end up in the same sedoretu all the time. It is, admittedly, more common for same-moiety siblings, bet different moiety siblings aren’t unheard of. All of this would be comforting to Barry if Iris seemed to show even the most remote interest in him.

Sometimes it’s like she doesn’t even see him.

His love never wavers.

* * *

 

Cisco loves Caitlin and Ronnie in the breathless, blushing way a kindergartener loves their first crush

He knows they can’t get married. Two evening men and only one morning woman? They’d be laughed out of the church.

But Caitlin and Ronnie don’t seem to care, so Cisco resolves not to care either, resolves to be content with the strange little corner of a part-marriage they have carved out for themselves.

But then Ronnie dies.

It’s like someone has stuck a vacuum cleaner into Cisco’s chest. He is hollowed out and caving in, and Caitlin won’t touch him or even look at him over the barely moving body of the stranger in their lab.

Some people just don’t get happy endings.

* * *

Caitlin tries not to like Iris, and fails miserably.

It feels like a betrayal, to feel the first flush of a crush so soon after losing Ronnie. She feels dirty and creepy, watching beautiful, quiet Iris stand vigil over Barry’s bedside.

They become friends; it’s a strange development. Caitlin is the doctor to Iris’s barely living Morning brother, and they have next to nothing in common.

Iris tells long, hilarious anecdotes about Barry, about growing up together and getting into trouble and getting out of trouble, until Caitlin is slowly, inexorably falling.

She hates herself. Part of her feels like she’s already replacing Ronnie.

Part of her feels like she’s replacing Cisco, which is even worse, because Cisco’s still there.

* * *

Iris loves Eddie so much she is positive she will spend the rest of her life with him, which is why she needs Barry to wake up

Because the idea of Barry not liking one of the people she’s going to marry some day is heartbreaking. The idea of him never waking up, of never even _meeting_ them, is unbearable.

Barry is the one constant in her life. Two dead mothers, their Evening father in jail, and their Morning father working all-odd police hours for their whole lives, Barry is the one person in the world who has never, ever faltered. The one person who has always been there for her.

Iris _needs_ Barry. Which is why she puts all her faith in Cisco and Caitlin, and prays, and prays, and prays.

* * *

Barry falls in love with Cisco almost instantly.

He wakes up to _Poker Face_ and two insistent sets of scientists hands in his personal space, looks at Cisco and it’s like the whole worlds stops for a moment and goes _oh_.

Cisco is hilarious and sweet, and so enthusiastic about everything; Barry waking up, Barry’s powers, the suit, Caitlin. Everything seems like an adventure when Cisco talks about it. Barry doesn’t believe in love at first sight but if he did, he knew his would have been Cisco.

It’s equally terrifying and yet so very, very different from loving Iris. Loving Iris is like breathing. Loving Cisco is like jumping out of an airplane and having absolute faith in your parachute.

He tries to decide which he likes better, and then he decides it doesn’t matter.

* * *

Cisco loves Barry almost too quickly, and it scares him. A lot.

It’s just so easy to love Barry. Like slipping on his favorite sweater during a Star Trek marathon. It feels like something that could _last_ and part of Cisco had always been scared that Ronnie and Caitlin would find a nice Evening marriage and not need or want him anymore.

But there’s no fear with Barry, not even a little, because Barry seems just as hopelessly infatuated with Cisco as Cisco is with him. It’s feels like destiny, kismet, like his whole life has been leading up to this.

Cisco sees, before anyone, the kind of life that they might someday have.

* * *

Caitlin has missed Cisco in the months since the particle accelerator explosion.

It was just so _hard_ to know of all they lost, of everything that they no longer have. The future she dreamed of is an impossibility now, and Caitlin mourns what could have been.

But none of that is Cisco’s fault, and Caitlin feels awful for pulling away from him, when they should have been taking comfort in each other. Who else could have understood her pain?

And now, watching Barry and Cisco grow closer and closer, part of her is jealous. But another part – the larger part- feels the first blooming of hope, and she can almost see what could be. What they might have, if only they can accept it.

She has lost so much, but she may have gained something as well.

* * *

Iris learns Barry is in love with her and it spins the whole world on its axis.

For all she loves him, being with Barry is something that has never even occurred to her as a possibility. It’s like asking why the sky is green. It’s nonsense, it doesn’t make any sense. And yet the evidence of her ears cannot be ignored.

Barry is in love with her.

And the worst part is that she can see it. It feels like betraying Eddie to even think about it but she sees the way Barry adores Cisco, can see all the potential in her relationship with Caitlin, knows Barry the way she knows the skyline outside her bedroom window.

She can imagine her life with them, and part of her wants it.

* * *

Barry doesn’t realize how important Caitlin is to him until she’s kidnapped.

He sees the frozen over handle of her car and it’s like one of the support beams of his house have just vanished. He realizes, with a lurch in his stomach, that he has found all three of the people he wants to spend the rest of his life with.

If Caitlin dies, he knows he will never have the life he wants. He will never be able to look Cisco in the eye again. Even his love for Iris will be tainted, forever knowing the life they could have had is gone.

* * *

Hartley is smart enough to realize Barry is his replacement and bitter enough to recognize that they love Barry far more than they ever could have loved him.

It’s a hard pill to swallow, and he doesn’t think Cisco, Ronnie and Caitlin ever realized just how much he wanted to be with them. Which is his own fault, for not saying anything, for deliberately hiding it because he was afraid of getting hurt.

And if his punishment for holding his tongue is knowing that Barry Allen will someday make them a far better Morning husband than Hartley ever could, well.

It’s not like he isn’t used to being alone.

* * *

Ronnie knows the second he comes back that Caitlin and Cisco love Barry.

His first though is that maybe he can learn to love Barry, too. He sees the potential of their lives, thinks “this is new but that’s okay” and tries to find his footing in a dynamic that is clearly different from when he left.

But then he meets Iris, and sees the way Barry looks at her like she hung the moon. He sees the way Caitlin tries not to smileat her and fails miserably. He sees Cisco exchange amused glances with her over Barry’s enthusiasm and he realizes that maybe Cisco and Caitlin don’t belong to him anymore.

But he thinks maybe that’s okay. Come what may, Cisco and Caitlin love him right now, and that enough for Ronnie.

* * *

Iris tells Barry she loves him as a tsunami is barreling towards central city, and seals it with a kiss she will never remember

* * *

Cisco meets Lisa and thinks -in the bitterest, loneliest part of himself – that he’s found a replacement for Iris, and that he, Caitlin and Barry can maybe make this thing work.

Because Ronnie wouldn’t stay, and that hurts Cisco a lot more than he’s let on, and really he’s very frustrated with himself _and_ Barry and Caitlin for being so hung up on Iris anyway.

So he throws caution into the wind, and when a sweetheart Evening woman comes up to him in a bar he decides “We are going to be friends if it kills me”

It nearly does.

* * *

Caitlin knows Barry, and honestly she always knew Iris would find out about the Flash. It’s almost a relief.

But admittedly, it didn’t go as well as she hoped. And Iris is furious with everyone, inconsolable with rage, and Caitlin watches Barry’s heart break and feel her own cry out in sympathy.

It was never really Barry’s secret. It belonged to all of them, and all of them are to blame for Iris’s anger.

The part of her that still loves Ronnie thinks that Iris will stay mad at them forever, and good riddance – they were all acting pathetic, pining over her anyway.

But the part of her that can’t stop loving Iris hopes quietly.

* * *

Cisco and Iris have the kind of relationship that starts slow and then takes a wild leap forward.

Cisco, by virtue of being the one Iris interacted with the least, is also the one she is the least angry at. Which means when she comes to S.T.A.R Labs, she’s glued to his side.

Which is nice.

She funny and sharp-witted and Cisco’s heart whispers _finally,_ like its spent forever just waiting for Iris to come complete them.

When Barry, in a fit of amusement, puts on the electric slide and he and Caitlin start shuffling clumsily around the cortex, his heart clenches. He laughs tightly, and jokes “You two are so hilariously white,” and Iris laughs, bright and clear like diamonds and says “Amen,”

He thinks this is it.

* * *

Barry kills Ronnie. Eddie dies.

He thinks bitterly that every obstacle to his happy ending is gone and feels like a monster. He can’t even look at them, these people he loves so fiercely and has hurts so much. He closes himself off, pushes all of them away. He realizes now that he can’t keep them, that this is one thing he can never have.

He watches Cisco find a place at the police station, and it feels like betrayal of everything he is not to congratulate him with a kiss on the cheek, to not smile when he passes him in the precinct. He watches Caitlin and Iris fall together, sharing and halving their grief over lost loves together.

He watches them all heal, and inside his wounds gape wider, and wider.

* * *

The six months that Barry won’t talk to any of them are agony, and Iris doesn’t know what to do about it.

She is happy with Caitlin. They talk, night after night, about what they have lost, but Iris is ready to move past what she has lost and accept what feels like the inevitable future she wants. And Cisco spends almost every day with then, sharing amused glances with Iris and kissing Caitlin sweetly, until this feels like almost everything Iris has ever wanted.

The only thing missing is Barry.

And the hole he has left is gaping, a painfully obvious missing piece of a matched set. They’re happy together, but Iris know they’ll never be as happy as they can be without their last piece.

* * *

Caitlin holds Barry’s hand as they watch Wells’ last message, but there are three sets of hands to hold him when his Evening father walks free

Iris wraps her arms around his waist and leans her head on his shoulder, and Caitlin and Cisco grip his hands like they’re afraid he’ll float away if they let go. And then Caitlin and Cisco give Barry and Iris a little shove, and they are falling, falling into a family reunion fifteen years in the making. Their Evening father is a free man, and though their family is not whole, it is certainly a lot bigger than is has been.

* * *

Henry and Joe are not the same men they were 15 years ago. They don’t fall right back into the half a marriage they have left. They still wear their rings, but after having lost so much, it is too hard to pick up right where they left off.

But Joe tells Henry all about the messy path their children took to find love. Henry watches the four of them, crammed onto the couch in a puppy pile of truly epic proportions, and he is so happy that he can’t stop smiling.

Henry takes Joe's hand, and he looks at their children and he sees the whole of their lives spread out before him. A life of hope, and love; a second chance.

The Allen-West family is, after all, so full of love.

 

**Author's Note:**

> there is no fic for my ot4 and there is never enough sedoretu fic in the world so HERE YOU GO


End file.
